


Ascension

by grimfey (renardroi)



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Murder, Pandora's Vault (Dream SMP), Reincarnation, god dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:28:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29811201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renardroi/pseuds/grimfey
Summary: This is his ascension day.Dream is a divine mirror, he thinks. And Tommy is a mortal beast, thrashing against him until he fractures.
Kudos: 21





	Ascension

**Author's Note:**

> this is GEN fic, and mostly about god dream. I am breaking my one rule because I am compelled by how horrible the prison is. anyways here's dream doing child murder.

This is his ascension day. 

Dream is a divine mirror, he thinks. And Tommy is a mortal beast, thrashing against him until he fractures. 

It takes a month for him to adjust to the interior of the prison. The heart of Pandora’s Vault is unbearably hot, not meant for things that require clean air, encased in pulsing lava. He can’t stand to approach the curtain of lava blocking the rest of the world from view, can’t bear to touch the obsidian shell that slices his palms. There are good reasons. He is much diminished, after two deaths, and he is tired. 

That month of adjusting, all he does is long for sleep. The divine sleep, wrapped in the coolness of the aether, wrapped in clouds. He lays on the obsidian floor, eyes unseeing, oblivious to the ebb and flow of the prison’s mechanisms. The clock ticks, the lava pops, the dispenser clicks and potatoes splash in water, but he can’t hear any of it. All he hears is the turning of his own thoughts, the same images and phrases repeated ad infinitum. He cannot breathe the hot, smoky air, he feels like his bones are melting, he misses color. 

By the end of the month, all he thinks, all he desires, is being able to grab the curtain of lava with his bare hands. He wants to draw it back, and over himself, and curl into it like a blanket. He can imagine the texture it would have, like stretched taffy, and the warmth of it burning away every rational thought. He doesn’t want to think anymore. He wants to feel. 

Somewhere around this turning, the mirror cracks. Something new abounds within him, bright-eyed and young, and its name is loneliness. Yearning. Dream, the Faceless Tyrant falls away like a discarded feather, gone but not forgotten by the body. Maybe it will regrow, given the time and the space for it, but his focus is on this new thing. 

A new version of himself, unnamed and untouched by mortal hands. He thinks he looks the same, fairly certain, but he sees right through himself to his bones and there is only obsidian and lava. When the loneliness overwhelms him, he spills tears of magenta, and the lava boils inside. Hot rage, hot yearning, and wet hot sadness. 

The Warden, for he does not remember the human’s name, seems perplexed by him. He asks questions, about the fasting, about the silence, about everything. And Dream is speechless. The words do not come to him, and how could he explain? This new thing must be fostered gently until it is ready to do these things, to take on the task of mortal mechanisms. He doesn’t know the nature of it, won’t until it tells him, but the Vault is silent, brooding, and now he is too. This makes sense to him. The Warden leaves when he offers no answer, his brow pinched with worry. 

The visitors are hard to adjust to. He doesn’t remember them, but Dream does, and the fondness for them tends to return in waves when he can see their faces. Their eyes reveal their names like whispers in the dark, sudden and loud, but as soon as they leave, he feels as though he can’t quite put his finger on what was said. Were they kind? Were they honest? Did he know them? 

The boy doesn’t meet his gaze, despite the hard stare. He glares at everything except for him, his anger fiery. Licking flames. The same as Dream, but so very different. Perhaps on some level, they can sense each other. Like two warm fronts doomed to meet, to judge each other’s heat and find the other wanting, to tear at the earth and eat of the harvest until it’s gone. And if Dream is a mirror, then he thinks perhaps that it’s a good thing Tommy does not want to look. 

Yes. Tommy. This name might stick with him. Might. 

Dream doesn’t want to spear himself on the sharp anger in Tommy’s eyes. He has fractured himself too many times already, and even he doesn’t know how to reign in all of his selves, to mend them all back into a singular self. The Peacekeeper that he once was, rattles against his ribs. The Tyrant claws at his throat, hungry to steal his voice. The Wilderness…

Is quiet. There’s nothing wild here. 

Even Tommy’s anger seems tame in comparison to the wildfire that he used to be. And the growing monolith inside of Dream blames the Tyrant. He cannot hate a facet of himself, not with any sincerity, but he does harbor something smoldering. The Tyrant had smothered the other parts of himself as best he could, drowning out the small voices that dissented. Whispered in the heat of battle, a plea for peace could have meant his end. When showing a united front was a life or death situation, it was smarter to chain his other selves to a distant rock and let the birds eat them. 

Tommy’s subdued campfire heat does not last a night, when they are trapped together. The embers overflow as the lack of sleep gets to the boy. He paces out of paranoia, practically bouncing off the walls to avoid letting his guard down around Dream, who is too overwhelmed by new sounds, less space, slower time. He had adjusted to his cramped quarters, had become the obsidian prison in order to tolerate being trapped within it, but Tommy had not and was singlehandedly changing the air and feel of things. 

The boy isn’t made to be here and the Wilderness pities him. He breathes fresh air into the cell when he can, and sits beside the lava so that Tommy will sit near the water and stay cool. Feed the flames with oxygen and douse them with water. He knows better than to mention it, to encourage Tommy to sit in the water if he needs to, for as long as he needs to, because the boy is too guarded to accept help. He understands. 

It’s hard to put his finger on what exactly is bothering him until Sam returns a while later. It’s bad news for Tommy, but Dream can’t help but feel disappointed as well. He wants his oven to himself again. There’s an aching hollowness inside of him, and he is tired of making himself small to suit the boy. 

Obsidian does not shrink, lava does not flinch. He should be unyielding. 

What he does not realize is that the shattering is not complete, not finished. Not until Tommy kills the cat. It’s been there for a few days, just out of reach. It’s smart enough to stay as far away from the lava as it can, and Dream doesn’t call it over. He imagines running his hands through the fur, the first soft thing he has met - besides Tommy. Of course he knows what it feels like to pet a cat, to feel its heartbeat, sense the bones and hear the breathing. The rumble of purring, the sharp claws and whiskers. Alive. 

He guards the cat when Tommy’s anger burns brighter, a veritable bonfire, taking the brunt of the heat, but he isn’t convinced that the boy would actually kill an innocent cat until it happens. 

And the breaking is complete. 

Dream stares at the still form of the cat and realizes who he is. He can feel his chest expanding with his first real breath, and he swallows the soul of the cat without a second thought. Death. The emptiness is lessened. He is the Vault. 

Tommy is still screaming, still thrashing, striking out at Dream and he understands. The past is a heavy burden, and he still resents the Tyrant for the things that he did. Tommy needs to fracture too, to burn away his old self and be reborn. This is something that Dream can provide, he decides. He is Death. He is the Vault. He is the Beginning, the End, and the Inbetween. If Tommy needs a quiet place to be remade into something new, then he can provide it. He can give the child the very thing that he had longed for, during that first month of imprisonment.

He does not shrink away when Tommy lashes out at him. Instead, he retaliates. 

The boy dies by his hands, and the blood is still pooling on the obsidian floor, mingling with his own and the tears from the ceiling, when Dream reaps his soul. This is his ascension day. The boy’s ascension day. 

A new divine. His first gift to the world as his new self. 


End file.
